District Attorney Craig Watkins is having an interesting time at work. There’s the alleged prosecutorial misconduct thing. Then the attorney general’s office comes along and says Watkins cut a “sweetheart deal” with a dentist accused of Medicaid fraud. And now this, from DPD:
DA Craig Watkins nephew is being arrested at Walmart at Pinnacle Park, I-30 and Cockrell Hill on a Class B misdemeanor for shoplift of a $69 pair of headphones. The AP had a small amount of marijuana in his possession, it is unclear at this time if there will be a secondary charge. AP is Thomas Lee Watkins III, B/M/07-17-92. The incident is documented on service number 53309-A.
Read the column Eric Celeste wrote today about Watkins. Then you’ll understand why only white journalists care about this shoplifting arrest.
UPDATE 1:25 — A member of the Watkins family tells me, “If he’s related to Craig, then he’s related to me, and I’ve never heard of Lee Watkins.” Which raises the obvious question: how the heck could DPD screw that up? Let’s see if we can get their response …
UPDATE 1:31 — Ten minutes after the DPD email about Lee Watkins went out, the DPD sent another email saying: “This information was inadvertently sent to media…please disregard…”
UPDATE 1:38 — More from DPD: “On March 6, 2013, the Media Relations office was notified of an arrest involving a person, Thomas Lee Watkins III, who claimed he was the nephew of Craig Watkins, Dallas County District Attorney. An email intended to go to Dallas Police Media Relations Personnel only was accidentally sent out to an email distribution list for media outlets. Further investigation revealed that Thomas Watkins is not, in fact, related to Craig Watkins at all. The Dallas Police Department deeply regrets the error and we offer our apology to the Watkins family.”
I get that the email was intended for internal communications only. But still. Wouldn’t you check out Lee’s claims before you sent that note? Next time I get arrested, I’m telling the cops that I’m the grandson of Woodall Rodgers.
